soarsaintlouis: 2012

Guest commentary: We can't drill our way to lower gas prices

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The proposed Keystone XL pipeline also is a dry hole. It would pump heavily polluting low-grade tar sand oil from land-locked Alberta, Canada, to Texas portside refineries. Most of the finished product would be loaded onto tankers and sent to foreign ports, not U.S. gas stations. We'd shoulder the potential environmental pain — pipeline leaks and refinery pollution — for little domestic supply gain.
Tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve makes no sense. Iran is threatening to shut the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 20 percent of the world's oil passes each day. Do we want to reduce our emergency reserve just before we might need it? Besides, the modest amount that it would add to supply would have only a small and short-lived impact on prices at the pump. It's another non-starter.
In short, we're in a hole. We can't drill or pump our way out. That is why cutting demand is imperative for a country that gulps 20 percent of the world's oil production each da

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/guest-commentary-we-can-t-drill-our-way-to-lower/article_0dc7c2a8-caf4-5e97-ae9b-13cd367ffd8b.html#ixzz1qzGmpnzi